In recent weeks, Georgia’s National Bank Governor Natia Turnava met with Ripple executives to discuss the potential use of blockchain technology in digitalizing the country’s economy. The meeting between top officials from Ripple and the National Bank of Georgia (NBG) is seen as a sign that Ripple is considering collaborations in this area.
The discussions between the two groups took place in Tbilisi and were led by Natia Turnava, acting governor of the NBG, and Varlam Ebanoidze, head of financial and supervisory technology development department. Also present were Ripple vice president James Wallis and Alistair Brown, vice president of EPAM Systems. While details of the talks were not disclosed, it is known that the focus was on exploring ways to work together on digitizing Georgia’s economy using blockchain technology.
It was announced late last year that NBG had chosen Ripple as its official technology partner for the development of the digital lari, Georgia’s central bank digital currency. The pilot program with Ripple aims to test its CBDC technology and assess its potential applications for public sector, businesses, and retail users. It remains unclear if the recent discussions between Ripple and NBG were related to this initiative or if they are exploring other areas where blockchain can be used to modernize Georgia’s economy. We have reached out to both Ripple and NBG for further comments and will update this article accordingly.